The Joy and Sorrow of Ubuntu

"I've only done a little work with Ubuntu 7.04 -- Kubuntu to be exact -- and I haven't done enough yet to feel I can say anything intelligent about it."

Do I even have to ask the question: how much time did he spend with Debian Etch before he trashed it?

I believe we had a discussion about SJVN and Debian just a few days ago...

I remember reading somewhere that Mepis is SJVN's Distro of choice, although, I've never actually seen him in one of their forums, or on IRC. My take is that like a number of compulsive Distro testers he really just tries a Distro until something fails him. The only difference here is that he's managed to get paid to write about it.

We're all go through that 'try everything' stage at at one time or another, but, some get stuck in that mode, and, a few never really settle anywhere. For all that installing, SJVN really doesn't strike me as very knowledgeable at all. especially for one who's been around Linux as long as he claims he has.

My god jim, you hit it!

He is just that, a compulsive Distro tester..who happens to get paid to write about it..

Wish I was him. ;-)

I always keep a few empty partitions for those times when I get a case of 'distro fever'. from late 1999 until about 2005 I was pretty happy running Suse as my personal desktop. I also had a debian install and, in the early days, a slackware.

I always tried the new distros, Libranet became a favorite. Mepis was a close second. Ubuntu and I never quite saw eye to eye, but it has a nice installer.

SJVN seems to know enough that I believe he has used Linux for actual work. But he may be like a social butterfly of distros (is that a metaphor metaphor?).

The video at the end of the article is priceless though! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWIrxuF5NSo

We see this in the support forums and on IRC all the time. The natural development of any new Linux user is to first dash around trying everything and anything. Rarely does a new user hit the Distro that fits them first time out, so some of this switching is pretty normal. Eventually, usually after a year or so, the user decides on something that pretty much suites him and begins to investigate and work Linux in depth. After that A user may switch, as for example, when his experience level allows him to try something that allows him to use that expertise.

It's perfectly normal to have curiosity about a new or up and coming Distro, many of us keep an empty volume open just to take a look-see, or just boot the live version, but we know that it's just that, 'curiosity'.

For some people, call it arrested development or whatever, they seem to have become stuck in that initial search mode, never settling on a working Distro, and never really learning anything in depth. Often those are the people who write the (painfully bad) reviews. I'm not saying that SJVN is that bad a writer, or even i that group, but at the same time he seems to adhere to that shallow dilettante view of any Distro he writes about.

> Wish I was him. ;-)

No Scott, you don't.

Let be know that I "kozmcrae", have viewed the above comment by "jimf" and bare witness that this is the absolute first time that I have seen the phrase "compulsive Distro tester". And further advise that should the American Psychiatric Association ever determine that "CDT" is a bonifide illness, it should be know as jimf syndrome.

/me straps kozmcrae into his straitjacket.

me straps kozmcrae into his straitjacket.

Forget it...he knows how to get out, trust me.

"Compulsive Distro Tester".

You say that like it's a dirty thing...

h

> Forget it...he knows how to get out, trust me.

Not once we inject the Thorazine....

> You say that like it's a dirty thing...

Dirty? No, but more than a little dysfunctional ;-)

> I remember reading somewhere that Mepis is SJVN's Distro of choice...

From the article, he uses Mepis and SuSE. I seem to remember that he's primarily an SuSE user myself, but you can guess what that's worth.

From the last 30 days on DistroWatch, Ubuntu is way ahead of the other "compulsively tested" distros. See http://distrowatch.com/index.php?dataspan=4

From this, it seems very surprising that SJVN has given so little attention to the current #2 behind Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS. Why is this?? has he not yet "gotten" to this yet, as some on LXer so vociferously have??

vainrveenr: It's a journalistic plot. He can't cover PCLOS because I just did. Now, when I finally turn my attention to SUSE, he can play with PCLOS. But right now, I'm waiting for Joe Barr to finish with CentOS, so I can write up something about Gentoo. Meanwhile, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier, is waiting on SJVN to finish playing with Ubuntu. And what, with Doc Searls working on that Slackware thing right now, we're kind of bottlenecked.

With apologies to all my fellow journalists...

> With apologies to all my fellow journalists...

What the heck! Apoligize for telling the truth? Some journalism :D

> And what, with Doc Searls working on that Slackware thing right now...

Well, it was all plausible up to that point.

dcparris: Thanks for the behind-the scenes distro-testing info :)

The remaining question is what new distro-comparison articles or features do you all think are going to come out based upon all you non-compulsive and distro testers and CDT's??

Well... um... uh... yeah. See, that's the problem.

@Don,

Well, I was gonna do a review on the new live 2007 Gentoo for ya, but, since it wouldn't even start an xserver in a live boot, I don't see that happening. Not sure if it has to do with the state of current expecations, or, just how Lazy I've gotten, but that one's a show stopper folks.

Not once we inject the Thorazine....

call me